New Delhi: In his Independence Day speech last
year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged global manufacturers to “Come,
Make in India”. And the following month, he formally launched the “Make
in India” initiative with a walking lion as its logo.

After affixing the lion logo to its flagship programme, the Modi
government suggested a far more radical change. At a March meeting of
the National Board for Wildlife, it suggested that the Asiatic lion
replace the tiger as India’s national animal.

Interestingly, before 1972, the lion was the national
animal of India. The Indira Gandhi-led Congress government replaced it
with the tiger when it launched Project Tiger—the country’s first
wildlife conservation programme.

Both the lion and tiger are on the endangered list of
wild animals and are protected by the laws of the land. There are around
400 lions and 2,000 tigers in the Indian wilderness today.

The proposal to revert to the lion as the national animal
has created tumult among tiger conservationists. According to them, the
lion doesn’t have a national presence like the tiger, whose population
is spread over 18 states.

India has 48 tiger reserves. The Indian lion (or the
Asiatic lion) is only found in the Gir National Park and its
surroundings in Gujarat which, incidentally, happens to be the Prime
Minister’s home state.

Wildlife conservation in India is species-centric and not
landscape-centric. It is largely concentrated on iconic species such as
the tiger, lion, elephant and rhinoceros.

Among these four species, the tiger is the superstar when
it comes to revenue—for conservation and tourism. The government’s
proposal to reinstate the lion as the national animal has, not
surprisingly, left the tiger conservation fraternity puzzled and
worried.

A couple of centuries ago, the lion had an extended range
over northern India. In eastern India, it was recorded in Bihar; in the
south, by the Narmada river. Widespread hunting at that time was one of
the prime reasons for the depletion of the lion population.

But for the timely intervention of the sixth Nawab of
Junagadh, Mahabat Khanji II (1851-1882), who banned hunting, the lion
would have been wiped out from the Indian subcontinent.

Sasan Gir in Gujarat, in the erstwhile state of Junagadh,
remains the last abode of the lion and the Gujarati community takes
immense pride that the last of Asia’s lions are on its turf.

The increasing reference to the species as the “Lion of Gir” has branded the Asiatic lion as the “Gir Lion”.

Over the past two decades, more than Rs.24
crore has been spent on the Kuno-Palpur sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh,
billed as the second home for the endangered beasts. But the sanctuary
has no lions, because Gujarat does not want to give it any.

The risk here is of keeping all eggs in the same basket.
According to conservationists, an epidemic in Gir might exterminate the
species. The need for a second gene pool is urgently required to protect
the species.

The lion is historically better represented than the
tiger—in medieval literature, in coinage, art, artifacts and
architecture. The use of the lion in symbols and signage gained
importance in India from the second half of the first millennium, with
the rise of the great Hindu kingdoms—the Nandas, Mauryas and Guptas.
Emperor Ashoka’s Lion Pillar gave India its national emblem. In
religion, the lion is mentioned in the Rig Veda, the first of the
four sacred texts in Hinduism; it is the divine mount of goddess Durga
and worshipped as Narasimha, an avatar of Hindu god Vishnu, visualized
as half-man and half-lion.

Mahavir and Buddha also used the lion as their symbol. Gautam Buddha’s first sermon was called simhanada, the lion’s roar, and he himself came to be known as Sakyasimha, the lion of the Sakyas. The lion was the symbol of royalty in Hindu mythology where the king and his throne—the singhasan (the lion’s seat)—were inseparable.

In northern India, Singh, meaning lion, has been used as a
middle name or surname since the seventh century by Hindus and later by
Sikhs. Indeed, it is not surprising to come across Sikhs with both big
cats in their name—Sher Singh. It was not only the Hindu kingdoms, the
symbol of lion found prominence both in the Mughal and British empires.

Modi, under whom the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014
became the first party in 30 years to win a majority on its own in the
Lok Sabha, is surely entitled to his singhasan. But as he talks
of heralding a new Industrial Revolution, can the lion become the symbol
of the Indian economy? And where will the tiger go from here?

Reverting to the lion as the national animal is more of political symbolism and has little to do with wildlife conservation

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"If ever you feel like an animal among men, be a LION" -Criss Jami, American Musician and Poet. "Lion: The fiercest and most magnanimous of the four footed beasts" - Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Asiatic Lion Protection Society

Asiatic Lion Protection Society (ALPS) founded in year 2006, is an NGO working mainly for conservation of Asiatic Lion in Gir forest and in Indian Zoos. Main objectives: To compile max. information about Asiatic Lion plus Gir forest and spread it through out the globe by website, blogs, Wikipedia, yahoo groups etc To help protection & conservation of Asiatic Lion & Gir forest by taking up projects like - Building parapets on open wells. - To contact and request nationalize banks of Gir area to put a condition to built parapet on open wells while sanctioning loan to farmers - At the time of festivals, organize camps near temples like Kankai, Banej & Tulsi Shyam to educate tourist to protect wildlife. - To distribute information and awareness leaflets at check-post to visitors using jungle roads. - Make representation & persuade Govt. to make Gir 'A Plastic Free Zone. Similarly contact local civil bodies to make their areas A Plastic free zone. To inform authorities about illegal activities inside the jungle like wood-cutting, removal of forest produce, poaching, illegal grazing etc. To inform authorities about injured wild animals. Also educate locals of Gir forests as well as school/college students to conserve Gir forest, it's wildlife and to represent to Govt. in favor of trans-location of Asiatic Lion to some other good place in Gujarat. P S: We welcome your comments & posts and expect that our conversation will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. You’re fully responsible for everything that you submit here in your comments & posts.

Discover Gir forest with us...

If you wish to travel Gir forest... we will be happy to help, guide and accompany you to explore Gir forest for the best experience. Please contact us for the same.

Gir forest...Gir lies has a topography made up of succession of rugged ridges, isolated hills, plateaus and valleys. Besides, being the last abode of Asiatic lions, Gir forms a unique habitat for ratel, rusty spotted cat, pangolin, ruddy mongoose, civets, paradise flycatcher etc.The overwhelming presence of the omnipotent big cat diverts the attention of the common man from the remarkable bird population that the sanctuary has. However, the birds of Gir sanctuary did attract the great ornithologist, Dr. Salim Ali who believed that, had the Asiatic lions not been there, the area would have been one of the most fascinating bird sanctuaries of the country.People mostly link Gir with "Maldharis" who have survived through the ages by having symbiotic relationship with the lion. They are religious pastoral communities living in Gir. Their settlements are called "nesses".At present, Gir forests of Gujarat (India) is the only natural place where this race of lions i.e. Asiatic lion is found.